Hardening the Pharaoh's Heart in Exodus

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In Exodus, the Bible repeatedly says that God hardened the heart of pharaoh each time Moses went to speak with him. My understanding is this was done in order for others to see the might and power of our God. The only God.
If my understanding is correct - were the pharaoh and others whose hearts were hardened given the opportunity to turn to God? I know he eventually allows Moses and his people to go and recognizes God’s might at that moment, but how does he have an option to choose God if God is hardening his heart?

More specifically, do you think God still does this? Would all evangelization be lost on such a person?
 
Bix said:
In Exodus, the Bible repeatedly says that God hardened the heart of pharaoh each time Moses went to speak with him. My understanding is this was done in order for others to see the might and power of our God. The only God.
If my understanding is correct - were the pharaoh and others whose hearts were hardened given the opportunity to turn to God? I know he eventually allows Moses and his people to go and recognizes God’s might at that moment, but how does he have an option to choose God if God is hardening his heart?

More specifically, do you think God still does this? Would all evangelization be lost on such a person?
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You are making the error the Calvinists make. I do not mean that as an insult I am trying to give you some historical context. Calvin taught that had God not hardened Pharaoh’s heart then Pharaoh would have perhaps done something other than he did. Whereas Augustine taught that all God has to do to harden our hearts is to remove restricting hand of the Holy Spirit upon us and give us our sway.

Thus had God done nothing Pharaoh in his stubborn and sinful heart, I think, would have done exactly what he did, and God, knowing the sinfulness of Pharaoh’s heart, removed the strictures of the Spirit upon him and gave him sway to have his own way.

Thus did God harden his heart, but not in a way that did violence to Pharaoh’s will.

Look at Romans 1:21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24*** Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts*** to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

and Romans 1 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

You see the Calvinists teach God has to force us to be sinners so He can exercise His power by sending us to Hell, but Paul taught we are sinners already and if we refuse to listen to God, God will give us up to the wickedness of our hearts, and by that very wickedness (which is our own it does not come from God) destroy us with our own pride and envy and lust and hate.

I hope that I have made that clear to you.

God Bless
 
To dovetail on what bogeydogg said, there are different phrasings in Exodus regarding Pharoah’s heart. Some passages say God hardened Pharoah’s heart. Other passages say Pharoah hardened his own heart. For instance:*Ex. 8:15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart, and would not listen to them

Ex. 8:32 But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and did not let the people go.

Ex. 9:34 But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned **yet again, and hardened his heart, he and his servants.***So when we see it say “God hardened Pharoah’s heart” in surrounding verses, we could understand it, for instance, that God confirmed Pharoah in his own hardness, or simply that God in His sovereignty has in some sense power over what transpires in creation.
 
I take after St. Augustine’s interpretation that bogeydogg explained.

I’m reading Exodus this week as well and what I noticed in context is that there is a possible interpretation that by God sending Moses indirectly hardened Pharaoh’s heart. The actions and words of Moses hardened his heart, like a typical prideful man not willing to assent to obvious truth in front of him. Ever notice the harder you press a person like this, the more s/he resists? I have to contemplate this theory more but so far, it fits.
 
Here is the footnote from the Aquinas Study Bible for Romans 9:17

9:17-18 To this purpose: Not that God made him on purpose that he should sin, and so be damned; but foreseeing his obstinacy in sin, and the abuse of his own free will, he raised him up to be a mighty king, to make a more remarkable example of him: and that his power might be better known, and his justice in punishing him, published throughout the earth. He hardens: Not by being the cause or author of his sin, but by withholding his grace, and so leaving him in his sin, in punishment of his past demerits. (Bishop Richard Challoner)
 
Thank you all for your generous (name removed by moderator)ut.
Much appreciated!🙂
 
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